We woke up this morning in Playa Caldera with a light 10 knots or so of wind and blue skies scattered with patches of clouds. There looked to be some trouble far to the east but we would have the morning anyway. Hideko and I slept in to recoup from the boisterous passage the day before. Everyone was up and about by 8 AM, giving the French Press coffee maker lots of business.

The large motor yacht had left the anchorage early (before I got up) and a new yacht, a Spanish registered sloop, had appeared. The French registered Amel was still in the same spot. The anchorage is lovely with great holding in sand all around. You need to enter nearer the mainland to avoid the shoal reefy stuff off of the north point but if you watch the sounder it is all pretty straight forward even in failing light. The north component of the swell does make its way into the anchorage but it wasn't bad last night. I noticed the Amel setting up a swell bridle though. If you had a north swell event this might not be a good spot, in fact it would probably be dangerous to get in and out of.

Chris Parker informed us that we could expect 20 knots and 7 foot seas for the next week, as well as squalls today and Sunday. Fortunately we planned to stay around Tortuga today and Los Roques on Sunday making a passage on Saturday. The wind sounded great but the seas were less than perfect. Seven seconds is a shorter than desirable interval for 7 footers. At least they would be on the quarter.

After enjoying a lazy morning we decided to take a trip ashore to see a little of Tortuga. We piled both of my parents, Roq and Hideko and I in Little Star and puttered over to the beach. Playa Caldera has a few fishing huts on the north shore but the main pueblo (if you can call it that) is on the lagoon on the other side of the sand spit. There is an airport here as well though I think it is dirt. The little village consists of a Guardacosta shack, a number of fishing shacks, a lovely looking little beach restaurant and bar with a sand volley ball court out front, and a few other nondescript shacks. I would imaging 50 people could live there. I saw 6: three fishermen, two ladies in a building near the restaurant and one coast guard officer. There were two dogs roaming about, but no one at the restaurant (clients or staff) and no sign of any real activity. It was just as you might imagine a sleepy Venezuelan village located on a remote island.

As we crossed the dunes from the anchorage side to the lagoon side Roq and I discovered that the area was rife with prickly balls. You know the little tiny balls covered with spines that are sharp as needles? We had to tread very carefully to get across without blood shed much as we did in Los Testigos.

The lagoon here is really nice. The entrance looks a little tricky but would be fine with good light. A few local boats were anchored inside but I didn't see any cruising boats.

After a brisk walk around the anchorage beach, the lagoon and the little town, we headed back to the big boat so that we could move anchorages. We brought up the anchor and made our way out of the harbor. As we moved into the open it became clear that the seas were still up and steep. The island seemed to accentuate the northerly component of the swell so it was almost on the beam. The wind was still pretty light at one in the afternoon but the swell was giving us quite a ride.

We motor sailed west up the coast staying in 40 to 50 feet of water. I typically like to sail along the 10 fathom line in poorly charted areas. This usually (not always) gives you plenty of time to head off shore in shoaling conditions and gives you enough water to keep the seas from acting up too much.

After rounding the reef at the center of the north coast we made way for the south end of Cayo Herradura. In retrospect I might take the north route around the island in these conditions if it were my first time making the entrance. The bottom comes up to 10 to 15 feet between Tortuga and Cayo Herradura on the south side and gets a little hairy with a big short swell. Not dangerous but less relaxed than the deep water entrance from the north. We made a slow arcing turn from our west heading until we were heading northeast into the anchorage. We crept in due to the numerous rocks shown on the chart and the large shoal patch. We found none of these. We just headed straight in NE until we got to 6 feet of water where we dropped the hook in clean sand. There are lots of patches of grass in the anchorage but I didn't see any rocks or shoals. I didn't look that hard but the chart painted a very different picture of the area.

Cayo Herradura is beautiful. The beaches on the leeward side are nice sand with calm water. A few yards away the windward side has crashing surf and big swaths of white sand. There were 5 sail boats, one motor yacht (not huge though like the one in Playa Caldera) and six or so fishing boats.

Like Playa Caldera there is a fishing camp here. More like three or four small camps with two to four shacks each. The fishermen are quick to come by offering lobster for sale. They open with a pretty high price so make sure you negotiate. We purchased two good sized lobster for dinner and they were delivered live and weighed in front of us. Very tasty!

Roq was done for the day but the rest of us spent the afternoon walking around the island. Cayo Herradura means horseshoe if I read the cruising guide correctly, and the island is shaped as such. There is a fun sandy point to the south east where the water from off shore and the water wrapping around the island meet in a calamity of crashing, confused turbulence. There is a light house on the other end of the island and it actually works (one flash every 15 seconds by my watch). Just past the light house there is a little cemetery with three or four crosses right next to each other. It made me wonder who was buried there and how they died.

Hideko drove Mom and Dad back to Swingin' on a Star in the dinghy while I snorkeled. I wanted to check the anchor due to the high winds we've been getting at night and the squally weather predicted. The Rocna was well buried as always and the chain looked good with plenty of scope. We had a little over 100 feet out and we were anchored in about 7 feet of water. Add five feet for our freeboard and you end up with about a 9:1. More than enough but the chain doesn't do any good in the box and the windlass doesn't mind the extra few feet.

Back at the boat I gave the bottom a good once over. Our log has been gunked up since Grenada so I tried to clean that up. I also wanted to keep an eye on the props. I have had a lot of friends and acquaintances lose props, blades or just have problems. That and the fact that I pulled them and reinstalled them for the first time in Grenada has me a little paranoid. Everything looked fine though.

We wrapped up the day prepping the boat for the longish trip tomorrow and enjoying the yummy lobster.